It was Nov. 3, 2016, and a Racine homicide trial involving the death of a 14-year-old girl had just been delayed for a second time because of incomplete tests at state crime labs.

Schimel saw a news article about the wait. Then he shot a terse email to his chief spokesman and former campaign manager.

"We can not have headlines about crime lab backlogs," he wrote. "Let's discuss how to resolve asap."

The email expressed urgency. But in the 18 months that followed, state crime lab workers increasingly struggled to keep up with caseloads, testing delays grew and more headlines surfaced about the backlogs, a USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin analysis shows.

Even after he took steps last year to address the growing pile of unfinished tests, Schimel now believes he will need to ask lawmakers for money to hire more lab workers.

"We’re still concerned that the increased submission levels are not sustainable," the attorney general said in a recent interview with USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin. "They continue at these high levels and it's clear these aren’t blips on the radar."

The crime labs logged nearly 16,000 cases last year, a 21 percent increase from the previous year that was driven by more DNA and drug cases, according to lab reports. Average response times have increased substantially for DNA, drug, firearms and other types of evidence.

About 1,300 crime lab cases were awaiting DNA analysis at the end of March. When major backlogs last made headlines in 2006, lawmakers responded by hiring 31 analysts. Nearly 400 of the cases at the end of March this year had been idle for at least three months.

Schimel, who oversees the labs, said he will likely ask the Legislature and Gov. Scott Walker for more workers and funding when state agency budget requests are due this fall. In the meantime, he plans to hire a consultant to review lab operations and provide input.

"We want to have an outside agency look at this so that we can make an informed decision about what requests we need to make," Schimel said. "We think we’re squeezing about everything we can."

Schimel authorized more overtime and created 11 part-time jobs last year in an effort to speed up lab work. But except for drug testing, which has improved dramatically, lab records show continued delays in several key areas.

Unable to keep up

Lab officials have attributed rising delays in recent years to a combination of changes in staffing, state law, federal mandates, crime patterns and police practices. Even small shifts can sometimes result in dramatic effects.

At the time of the Racine homicide trial, for example, the unit responsible for reviewing gun evidence had lost two workers over pay issues, leaving it with two trained staff and two others in training.

Nikki Roehm, the crime lab’s director, said one of the workers left for an Arkansas crime lab position and received an additional $5 an hour, or roughly $10,400 annually for a 40-hour work week.

Roehm said it takes about two years of training before workers can handle firearms cases independently. The pair being trained in 2016 just completed the process this year, bringing the unit to four trained staff "for the first time in years."

With toxicology cases, Roehm said the state has similarly lost a lot of staff to attrition and seen delays from needing to train replacements. Lawmakers in 2016 also expanded the number of drunken driving cases that qualify as a felony, moving those cases under the crime lab's purview. The lab received no additional workers, however.

"The law changed, the workload increased and we weren’t given any more personnel," Roehm said.

Roehm joined the state crime lab as one of the 31 DNA analysts hired in response to the 2006 backlog. She said it’s difficult to compare then and now, because so much has changed in how authorities prioritize and test cases. State authorities have attributed rising DNA delays in recent years to lawmakers expanding DNAcollection mandates in 2015 and then the FBI requiring more information from DNA tests last year.

"When we double the amount of areas of a genetic sequence that they have to look at, that doubles how much time it takes," Roehm said. "We’re now over a year into this (FBI requirement). People’s confidence level with the data that they’re seeing is increasing across the board."

Roehm and Schimel said they have been pleased to see progress from last year’s steps to address rising delays. But Roehm compared the pace to a train leaving a station, slow at first before gathering speed.

Election-year influence

Schimel is campaigning for re-election this year against Democratic challenger Josh Kaul, a Madison attorney and former federal prosecutor. Crime lab delays aren't what the Republican incumbent hoped to be talking about.

In 2006, a mountain of long-pending DNA cases at state crime labs dominated an attorney general election. As a result of that race, Republican challenger J.B. Van Hollen replaced a Democratic incumbent, Peg Lautenschlager.

Van Hollen campaigned on a pledge to eliminate the backlog and then touted fulfilling the promise when he successfully sought re-election in 2010. When he declined to seek re-election in 2014, making way for Schimel, Van Hollen said eliminating the state's DNA backlog was one of his greatest successes.

Schimel and Kaul are acutely aware of that history. Schimel has cited the 2006 DNA backlog while objecting to the word "backlog" in the context of old rape kits that were left untested in police and hospital storage rooms. Kaul is the son of Lautenschlager, who died March 31 from the effects of cancer.

Democrats in the past year have hammered Schimel over the state's response to old rape kits. So far, delays in testing evidence from new cases hasn't received as much attention.

Kaul said during a January interview that Schimel should've hired more DNA analysts long ago to address old rape kits and if that had been done, more analysts would now be available to address current cases involving sexual assault and other crimes. State officials under Van Hollen first discovered the old rape kits in 2014.

It remains unclear how the scope of current testing delays compares with the 2006 DNA backlog. At the end of 2006, state authorities said 1,785 DNA cases were waiting to be tested. However, Roehm said the state crime lab has not consistently tracked caseloads since then and DNA cases today require more time.

Police, prosecutors upbeat

The Racine homicide trial provided an example of a high-profile case being pushed back as a result of crime lab delays, but law enforcement authorities have pointed to other cases as signs of speedy testing.

A chorus of police chiefs and prosecutors — including Racine County’s district attorney — have told USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin in the past year that they were content with lab response times, even though some hearings had been postponed.

"We have experienced what I believe to be very good response time on serious cases, including (in) cases where we are in need of lab results prior to making a charging decision," Brown County District Attorney David Lasee said in December.

Portage County District Attorney Louis Molepske said he could not recall a high priority case being delayed because of incomplete tests, although his office doesn’t keep track of how often cases are rescheduled. He said the state should hire more lab analysts, though.

"Clearly, the lab needs to hire new permanent positions, not just limited-term employees as the explosion of drug cases and alcohol-related crimes continues to be a problem across Wisconsin," he said.

La Crosse, Manitowoc, Sheboygan, Oshkosh and Madison police officials reported no major concerns when surveyed about crime lab response times in September last year.

Sheboygan Police Chief Christopher Domagalski, who is president of a state police chiefs association, said members are pleased with the crime lab's responsiveness and attention to the highest-priority cases.

The Racine homicide case ultimately was resolved in October 2017 with the killer pleading guilty after prosecutors reduced the severity of a charge. He will serve more than 40 years in prison for the slaying, gun-related charges and a battery.

Parents of the victim, a 14-year-old girl, did not respond to requests for comment. In November 2016, when the trial was again pushed back due to crime lab delays, the girl's grandfather told the Racine Journal Times that his family was satisfied with the proceedings so far.

"Hopefully things will be a little more tangible on Jan. 30," Will Crockett said, referring to the next scheduled trial date.